


Hide and Seek

by MirrorMystic



Series: Wings of Rebellion [11]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Character Study, Ficlet, Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-15 21:29:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15421968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirrorMystic/pseuds/MirrorMystic
Summary: Light, darkness, and the hurting people in between.





	Hide and Seek

**Author's Note:**

> An old little ficlet I dug up from years ago, that wound up giving me Rothschild feels. A look into the lives of Arc, eldest son of King Lima, and his estranged sister Sice- a killer before she turned thirteen.

~*~  
  
There is a simplicity in opposites that only a child can truly appreciate. Life is so much easier without any in-betweens. It's either this or that, predator or prey, kill or be killed.  
  
She has always savored such simplicity. She lived simply; no secrets. For a life spent in the shadows, she held a brutal sincerity. In the dark, people always say what they mean, or let their hands speak for them.  
  
That was her world. In her world, darkness held a comforting certainty. She didn't cling to any fleeting dreams of safety. In her world, the darkness was the hunt. It was a bloody choice, between hunted and hunter, but it was a choice you were always free to make.  
  
His world was different. He was different. He came from a world of candlelight and soft places. Clean floors, open spaces, high ceilings, warm lights. He came from a world of stories and myths and words that didn't always mean the same thing. He came from a place of promise and compromise, of deals and duty.  
  
He came from a place where candles feebly held back the night. She wondered why he clung to the light. She wondered what he was so afraid of; if he was afraid of the dark, or what was in it; if he was afraid of her.  
  
And while she wondered, he wondered also; how young she was when she first held a knife; what kind of life she lived where such skills were necessary; if she ever wanted to be like an ordinary girl; or if she even knew what that meant at all.  
  
That was his problem, they silently agreed; he still believed there was anything "ordinary" left in the world.  
  
It was always he who did the speaking. He was the one who spoke with words, after all, but he never says what he means. He would say sad things with a smile on his face, or happy things when he looked sad. He was kind, however; he was always kind, even though, sometimes, it looked like he was about to cry.  
  
Until, eventually, his smile breaks like the painted glass adorning the windows; or she hears a story that stops her in her tracks, and she flicks from enraptured to deep in thought.  
  
Their eyes meet, and for a moment, it is like looking into a black mirror; a dark reflection, like a landscape hanging inverted in a muddy pool. She, a shadow shrinking away from the invading, garish light; he, a beacon with darkness within, a grasping, growing shadow weighing heavy on his heart.  
  
There are times when the light leaves his eyes. He presses his lips into a line and folds up the parchment, stuffing them into boxes growing increasingly unkempt. He'll take out a fresh sheet, and another, and another, until his frustration mounts and his poise dissolves as he stabs his quill into the page.  
  
"Found you," She would rasp, as he slumps, defeated, in his chair, when he has no more words to hide his heart behind.  
  
~*~


End file.
